Am I hard to love?
Yes
I get quiet. Quiet could be translated as angry, hungry, thoughtful, or empty. I get busy. With my own things. My lessons, my training, my reading, my writing, my mind. I get tired. A wonder woman style existence is fucking exhausting. I become forgetful. I forget that I invited you in, and that requires an ongoing allowance for interaction. Ongoing. Ongoing read as effort.

Am I hard to love?
Maybe.
I’m quiet, busy, tired and forgetful. I am what women before me worked to become. I am a strong willed, tenacious, driven and passionate. I’m a woman with a life that stands alone comolete. I’m a woman who lives everyday with a purpose. That purpose exists now. That purpose exists with no other half. That purpose will always exist.

Am I hard to love?
I am easy to love.
I am evolving.
I am moving forward.
I am life.
Evolve with me.
Run with me.
Adventure with me.
Keep up.
Don’t make me hard to love.

“I respect you as a woman. I’m so glad we became friends. I’ve never been friends with a woman and not had anterior motives. I have it all right now, I’m so in love with my wife, and I feel like I’m really growing to have been able to connect with a woman like you.”

This call followed a text I had sent thanking him for some advice on dealing with my eldest child. He was generous with his time and experience as we waded through the mess that is parenting adolescence.

I brushed my prideful shoulder off and thought…fuck yes…this Is what a grown up friendship with the opposite sex looks like. Hooray me. Progress.

Coffee became a regular thing over the next few weeks. We talked about kids and work. He quizzed me about my dating world. I obliged feeling like we established that we would not be fucking early on. That phone call, that was meaningful goddammit.

I’ve learned that men with charisma are very attractive to me. I’ve also learned that charisma is just a shiny byproduct of an inflated ego most of the time.

When I think about that night at Starbucks now it makes me want to vomit.

He said they’d had a fight. A fight about mustard. He couldn’t go home, please meet me for Coffee.

I pulled up and he sat at an outdoor table. I had just finished work and was wearing my yoga pants and a hoodie.

He hugged me. And he lingered.

Oh shit. Right away, red flags, sirens, alarms….

He went in to buy me tea.

I Sat and plotted my exit.

He came back and asked to hug me again.

I could feel my cheeks start to redden, and my breath shallowed.

I do not want this. I don’t want him to touch me.

My body detached from my heart and mind stood up like a good little girl. He wrapped one arm around my hips and slinked his clammy hand up my back. I was sweating. Panicking. I do not want this. His hand moved up and down and his lips found my earlobe. He said in a low voice that my skin was so soft. I laughed a nervous laugh and my face was on fire. I need to leave. He plunged his tongue into my ear. Twice. All the while his clammy fucking hand on my bare back.

I stepped backward. I sat. I looked at my lap. Embarrassed and angry.

He started to talk about his wife. How the mustard situation got out of hand.

I was shaking. I am a powerful fucking woman and I just let this shit head put his hands and mouth on me. What’s the fucking matter with you? Get up. Leave! Now!

I couldn’t leave. I was stuck, paralyzed with fear, but more powerful than the fear was disgust at my inability to open my fucking mouth and draw a fucking line.

I wanted to crawl into a cocoon and hide. And this schlep….fucking oblivious. Blabbering on about mustard and fucking sandwiches.

I’ve been taken advantage of before. Many times.
But the disguise of friendship as someone’s angle made me feel like I’d missed the neon sign stating DO NOT ENTER.

He didn’t know I was uncomfortable, because he didn’t really know me. He knew the surface bullshit, the stuff everyone knows. I like Coffee and ice cream and movies. I like warm holidays and my kids are my favourite people. Basic. Shit.

He didn’t know what my fears were. What relationships had shaped the woman sitting here in despair and disgust in front of him. He had no clue that I don’t let my walls down for people. That if you make it into my inner circle you know that loyalty is a fucking cornerstone of relationships with me.

He had manipulated a situation to get the surface bullshit. The sex. The skin. The mouth. The meaningless bullshit that I spent my 20’s giving away for free.

Now. There was a price. A price that he couldn’t afford, and unfortunately attempted to fucking negotiate.

I thought you had your shit together. That you had two feet on the ground and direction…. I feel like I’m holding your hand…and dragging you. The reason you think that wives nag is because jackasses like you don’t actually take action. You rest on your yesterday hoping it pulls you through today while i, or the collective wife WE, are over here busting our ass trying to hold the universe up.

Yes, the universe. Yes UP.

The;
Where should we eat
What should we watch
What time should we leave

The mother fucking universe.
All of the nitpicking goddamned details your head can’t process and move on from because it’s so jammed up from your overloaded receptors.

Guess what genius.

I am the wife. The husband. The universe holder.
I’ve got this shit. With or without you.

The no stuck. What stays with me long after that conversation ends though is what is going through this gentleman’s mind?
Not only now and in this exact moment, but later, with this ultimatum mentality, what other behaviours are going to manifest themselves through your need to belittle my no. To try to negate my ability to be clear and concise with my very first fucking answer. To try to incur self doubt when it’s you in fact who’s being rejected.

I don’t care to spend time with someone who can’t respect my no. If the answer to a no is a mental tantrum, foot stomping in the form of threats then you have a long road of learning what it means to accompany a real woman in this life.